The United kingdom; a political history

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1907 Excerpt: ...a colonel, who refused to recognize the divine warrant, and it was reduced to its presbyteries and synods. The union, some say, was an unwise measure because it set Scotch nationality at naught. If union was good in 1707, why was it not good in 1652? Had not the Scotch fought at Marston and been represented in the Committee of the Two Kingdoms? Had not the union of the kingdoms, their religious union at least, been an article in the Scotch treaty with Charles at Newport? Had not Scotland proclaimed Charles II. king of Great Britain and sought to put him on the British throne? Was there any barrier between the Englishman and the Lowland Scotchman more insuperable than that between a Lowland Scotchman and the Highlander, or even than those between parties in Scotland? Had not union been proposed by the Scotch to Elizabeth? Had it not just been proposed by Argyle? What was to be done with Scotland? Was it to be put back into the hands of the enemies of the English Commonwealth? If we condemn a policy we are bound to be prepared with a better. Over the colonies, after a slight resistance by a royalist party in Barbadoes and Virginia, the Commonwealth stretched its rule, but on terms, as expressed in the case of Barbadoes, of colonial self-government, self-taxation, and freedom of trade, which if they had remained in force might have torn the page of the American revolution out of the book of fate. The government of the Commonwealth had to assert its place among the governments of Europe. Catholic monarchies showed little emotion at the fall of the heretic king, and were ready to bid for his fine collection of works of art. But they, Spain especially, looked with horror on a regicide republic, even in an island, with the sea to cut off the contagion. Luckily for...